Tom Brady’s Got Back

After two years of deflating and arguing the final result is finally past us and the pretty boy prodigy has returned to his rightful place as being a system QB. COME AT ME MOTHERFUCKERS. The Patriots record without Brady is 15-6, I believe. 2007, 2016, and the one AFCG Bledsoe started in Brady’s breakout season. Brady is vital to the Patriots but I think this factoid clearly, clearly illustrates that much of the Patriots success can be contributed to Belichick more than Brady, Brady just makes Billy’s job easier. The Colts turned into a trash fire without Manning. Until Dak, the Cowboys were the same without Romo. Brady is not the best QB of all time (All he has in his favor over Peyton are rings but rings are a team accomplishment), but Belichick, for my money, is easily the best coach of all time.

I wonder how Tom Brady spent his time off. Knowing Brady he probably sperged out and spent most of it keeping in shape and as in touch as he could so he could be ready, but I like to think he binge-watched Netflix shows and ate cookies. Maybe he spent the entire time sitting angrily in a basement room throwing darts at a picture of Roger Goodell.

I’m excited to see if there will be any real rust/age on him or if he comes in and just hate-fucks everybody (I expect the latter and have sadly resigned myself to them winning the SB until proven otherwise). The Patriots, as this year has proved, are especially good when they achieve underdog status. It rarely happens but they seem to relish it and Billy seems to try even harder. Last time the Patriots achieved underdog status was two years ago after the Chiefs blew them out. Then they won the Super Bowl just to spite everyone. That was because of one week of criticism. I seriously shudder to think how angry Brady is right now. The poor Browns are going to die.

As an aside, I doubt I’ll make a comic about it but the blown call on the fumble this past week on the Browns might be the worst call in years. I can forgive them getting the call wrong on the field in the moment, but even on review? Even the NFL won’t admit they screwed up horribly and tried to pretend the refs were right. God hates Cleveland.

Edit: Lol a joke about Brady being a system QB and suggesting he’s not the GOAT ends up being my biggest hot take of the year, I especially like Patriots fans telling me I’m biased about Brady, some nice irony there. To be honest, I’d probably put Brady #3 all time for me with Peyton and Marino in front of him.

That’s not how football works. Just because someone “has something to prove” that doesn’t mean it’ll actually happen. Upsets can happen. Mid season slumps can happen. Wildcard/Divisional round eliminations can happen. It only takes a spark from some other 3-4 teams and the Pats are done for the season.

It’s no secret how Brady spent his time off. He was in Italy with Gisele passively aggressively giving Goodell a big F.U. and your suspension. I can just image Tom thinking, “Put me on suspension? Fine I’ll take my supermodel wife to Capri. Suck it Goodell”.

Brady is the best qb of all time. Sorry Dave, but your Giants bias is showing. Look, by the time he retires, he will have the most wins by any qb, the most passing yards, tds, completions, and wins in the playoffs by a qb, most Super Bowl appearances by a qb, 3 Super Bowl game winning drives (should’ve been 5). Why can’t Belichick and Brady be considered the best of all time? Because that’s what they are.

So what if someone like say Mike Mularkey was Tom Brady’s coach? No one would think of Brady as a GOAT. Brady is great, yes, but it is evident that Belichick is the M.V.Patriot. New England has benefited from the perfect storm of Owner+Coach+QB with the most replaceable part of this equation being the QB. When Tom is gone the Pats will play on but when Bill retires….just imagine. And to think Bill started his head coaching career in Cleveland. The Browns truly are cursed.

Brady could end up as the greatest of all time in twenty years, but as of right now, he’s not the greatest quarterback of all time, purely because someone’s greatness relies heavily on their influence.

We know the kind of influence Joe Montana had with the west-coast offense and creating the prototype of the modern quarterback. We know the kind of influence Jim Kelly had with the K-Gun offense and the 90’s Bills. We know the kind of influence Fran Tarkenton had by shattering the idea that a quarterback has to stand in the pocket and never run. We know the kind of influence that Johnny Unitas had by completely redefining the role of the quarterback.

We simply can’t evaluate Brady’s influence on the game right now, because he’s still influencing it. He could easily surpass all of those names, but right now, we don’t know. We won’t truly see how influential he’s been until we’re a generation removed from his prime, which is something we’re still in, if last year’s numbers are any indication. A lot of your greatness and place in history has to do with how you influence those who come after you. It’s the reason guitarists like Jimi Hendrix are still revered even though, from a purely technical standpoint, they’ve been far surpassed, or why games like Ocarina of Time are still so celebrated even though their mechanics, design, etc. show their age and limitations. Influence matters in terms of “greatest ever” discussions, and it’s something that can’t be judged for years.

Brady could easily end up as the greatest ever, but until he retires and we see the influence he’s had on a new generation of quarterbacks, quarterback coaches, offensive coordinators, et al., we can’t say what his influence has been, and influence is a massive part of a legacy.

That’s because Aikman had Hall of Famers around him. Who has Brady had? 2 years with Moss, a bunch of injury riddled seasons with Gronk? Not a whole bunch of talent around him. Plus his clutch gene is Jordan-esque.

Only Aikmen is given less credit for the success of the Cowboys not just becuase of the system but largely because he had incredibly pedestrian career passing stats (51st in passer rating, 41st in interception percentage, 34th in passing yards, 67th in passing touchdowns), Tom Brady ranks in the top 5 of almost every statistical category (and probably the top 3 of each of these catagories by the time he retires). You mention that the only thing he has over manning is Rings (and by that measure a hell of a lot better playoff record) but here’s the most important QB statistic in my reckoning: (as turnovers make or break games and Manning knows this very well) Tom’s career interception ratio is second lowest of all time (after Rodgers) Payton Manning’s is 28th, just behind Matt Stafford… Not only is he clearly one of the best ever (top 2 in my opinion) if he wins a fifth ring (with another strong performance in the big game itself) he will easily be considered the best of all time over Montana, as Brady will have done more in a free agency era where his team wasn’t able to hold on to all the triple A stars for their whole careers like the 80’s 49ers or the 70s Steelers did…

Don’t even try using the Montana as an example. Walsh created the West Coast offense. Hell, if Brady’s such a system qb, Montana’s a bigger one because Steve Young won a Super Bowl after they got rid of Montana.

…I’m going to assume this was addressed at me since I was the only one in this chain who mentioned Montana, so if not correct me, but if so, the point isn’t “Brady is worse than Montana” or something like that. The point I’m trying to make there is that every single quarterback considered the greatest ever has been out of the game for at least a decade, because you can’t calculate greatness without seeing influence. You can’t accurately measure something that’s still growing, so we can’t really measure Tom’s influence while he’s still playing. Hence, as of right now, he’s not one of the greats, but not the greatest, because we don’t know just how influential he’s going to be in the grand scheme of the league yet.

Again, if it wasn’t directed at me, forget what I said, I’m just assuming because I’m the only person in this chain who used Montana for anything.

There is no way Jordan wins 6 championships without Phil Jackson. There is no way he would be considered the greatest of all time if he only won 2 or 3 rings with Larry Brown or whoever.

To be the greatest of all time, you have to be great, and you have to be put into a great situation. Sports history is littered with the carcasses of great players who were put in lousy situations and so never amounted to their full potential.

Exactly. Barry Sanders would clearly be the greatest of all time at RB if he hadn’t languished on an awful team his entire career. I still think he probably is the greatest, but it’s nowhere near the consensus it would have been had he won 2-3 rings, or hell, even made it to a super bowl.

I mean thats not really true. Influence just tells you how much you changed the game not how good you were at it. Usain Bolt didn’t revolutionize running by any means. Is there any good argument for why he isn’t the greatest sprinter though? If the argument is most influential you are absolutely right but the argument is for greatest.

Peyton Manning took 2 different teams with 4 different head coaches to the Super Bowl (You can discount the recent one if you want, I kind of do)

Tom Brady has never been to the Super Bowl without Belichick and Belichick has achieved success without him. The only times Brady has won the Super Bowl has been with a good to great defense. His two “offensive” years were losses. Brady is a HoF QB but he’s not the #1 reason the Patriots have been what they are for the past 16 years. Belichick is. Without Belichick Brady is like most great QBs like Peyton, Marino, Brees, Rodgers, Etc. They keep their team good and competitive and probably drag them to a title or two, but that’s it. Belichick is the GOAT and I think every game the Patriots win without Brady cements this more and more.

Belichick’s success is one playoff appearance and an overall losing record without Brady. Easiest schedule in the league in 2008 and still couldn’t make the playoffs. Went up against a Cardinals team that is showing up some weeks and disappearing the rest and a texans team still trying to figure out its offense. These are just ideal situations on top of ideal situations for a HC.

This. Remember any time you bring up other “Greatest” QB’s and Coaches you will likely be naming Montana, Gram, Starr, Unitas, Shula, Halas, Landry, ect… you have to remember that none of them played or coached in the free-agency era which vastly increased the level of parity in the league as the strongest teams couldn’t just hoard the best players for their entire careers. there is no arguing that those names I listed are some of the best QBs and Coaches of all time but it was easier for their respective teams to be dominant back then…

While your point that Belichick is the primary reason for the Patriots success– and I partly dispute that, because I think it belongs to someone most of you have never heard of, Ernie Adams– is well taken, Brady is a better QB than Peyton (in an historical context) for reasons that have little to do with rings, but much to do with earning them.

This is a fascinating argument (to me), and in the end, I have to fall firmly on Brady being better than Manning, not based on Super Bowl Wins (which, you are right, says more about team than player, though the player can definitely tilt that), but based on QB play vs. great teams. And the reality is, there’s very little drop off that Brady faces against Play-off teams, or even against top 10 defenses. In fact, so far as I have been able to find looking at Super Bowl winning QBs since the 1980s (stats get too murky much before that), only Montana’s better. Manning’s drop-off isn’t the worst that’s out there, but Roethlisburger and Flacco both have performed better than Manning has against top-10 defenses they’ve played, and Romo has performed better against top 5 defenses than Manning has. That’s telling, to me.

Manning was *RUTHLESS* against inferior teams, and he destroyed them in ways that few QBs have ever done before or since he entered the league. Manning redefined the way offense is played, and that’s an intangible that he really doesn’t get enough credit for– without Manning to push Brady as hard as he did, Brady is no where near the QB he is now. But the fact is, Brady has risen to that challenge, and in truth pushed Manning further than likely Manning would have gone without that per-eminent rival for historic greatness.

But Brady is one of the best *ever* against great defenses. He doesn’t slow down, and even when his team does lose, his personal performance takes a lower drop than his team’s usually does. Yes, there are some games where he just vanishes or where his greatness is, well, less than great (hi2u 2015 AFC Championship), but often that can be nakedly attributed to his team not being up to the task (and Brady had, I feel, some of his best play ever in that game. He should have been sacked 15 times, and he did EVERYTHING to help his team win– the Broncos were just ferociously unstoppable). And that’s the “eye test” we kind of have to rely on.

When Peyton’s gone against great defenses, he’s still frequently had lots of time– in fact, the top-10 defenses out there often beat Peyton by showing blitz, and then going to huge coverage, and Peyton floundered and threw unforced picks that cost his team (inferior teams blitzed Peyton, top-10 defenses pushed him to throw in an unnecessary hurry, especially the Ravens) multiple Playoff games. How many times can you really look back at a playoff loss the Patriots had, and could honestly say, “Man, Tom Brady really screwed the pooch on that play (let alone “those plays”), and just absolutely cost his team any chance of winning.” Now go back and look at Manning in that regard.

Manning was the most dominant QB the NFL’s ever had against inferior defenses. Brady is the second-most QB the NFL’s ever had (excepting maybe Bradshaw, Starr, and Graham) against GREAT teams, and I would put the argument that Brady has done that with weaker offensive support than any historically-great QB except Elway (seriously– Elway only ever had 3 actually great teams offenses around him, and he won 2 Super Bowls with those. The ’90 Broncos defense was league-best, but the offense was Elway-and-10-guys). It’s not just rings (I think Elway was a better QB than Manning, and I would make a strong case that Roethlisburger is, too), it’s performance when the weight is on your shoulders and the game is on the line.

My last argument on it would be this: It’s the Super Bowl. You’re down 6. 90 seconds left to play. You’re against the League’s best defense. Your Magical Team has Brady and Manning on it, and both are at the absolute prime of their career. Both have had similar stats so far in this game. Which one do you put in to win?

For what it’s worth, I put credit for the Patriots success as 35% Adams, 30% Belichick, 25% Brady, 10% The Team. Ernie Adams is the most important mind in football today, possibly since Lombardi and Brown. Belichick is still phenomenal, but no where near what he is without Adams. Brady is great, and much of that greatness is due to Belichick and Adams shaping of him and the team around him. He benefits from a great support front office, and a great system to work with, but like every great QB + Coach combination, he makes that system *great*. Lombardi, Brown, Walsh… all of them achieved historic levels of greatness because they had QBs who were perfect for their systems to lift them over the edge. QBs capable of filling their scheme when it mattered the most. Belichick without Brady is like Manning– good enough to beat every mediocre and bad team in the League, but not good enough to beat great teams (and to sometimes lose against mediocre teams); Belichick WITH Brady is a giant-slayer (except, obviously, against the Giants… or the Broncos). Maybe Manning could have had more success in that regard with better coaches (Dungy was barely good– though still good– never world-shatteringly brilliant, and Kubiak is the only other coach Manning ever had that I’d call good, let alone in the running for GOAT Coach). We’ll never know, and ironically, Manning’s success made it harder to find out, because he was good enough to cover a multitude of sins on his teams. Maybe, if he’d had a coach like Kubiak his whole career, he would have done better against great defenses like Brady has. Who knows?

Career Playoff QB Rating
Brady – 88.0
Manning – 87.4 (88.4 during his time with the Colts)

I know rating is a flawed stat, but the idea that Brady is so vastly superior to Manning in the playoffs is based entirely around 1) Brady has more rings and 2) Peyton’s wretched 2002 performance. Obviously rings count, but they are entirely a team accomplishment.

Except Brady has played only 4 more games in the playoffs (31 vs. 27) which is far from “a ton”.

Also, playing more games doesn’t make it any harder to maintain a higher average – every game is just as much an opportunity to raise your average by playing well as it is an opportunity to lower it by playing poorly. Playing more and more games simply does more to smooth out the curve, making your averages less likely to be influenced by the extremes, such as a really great game or a total stinker.

The difference comes down to playing indoors vs outdoors. Manning’s passer rating is much higher from playing his games in a dome while Brady has to play in Foxboro weather. Look at their career splits at profootballreference

I did look at their splits – Manning’s outdoor rating is 94.0 versus 99.1 when playing in a dome. Manning played 136 games outdoors, vs. 92 in a dome, with 38 coming with a retractable roof (where his rating is 99.2).

Yes, Manning’s rating is higher when he plays in a dome (so is Brady’s) but the idea that Manning sucks outside of a dome is a total myth. It contributed to his overall success to a degree, but not nearly as much as people say it did.

I didn’t say Brady magically plays the same inside a dome and outside. I am saying Manning’s career numbers are inflated by playing in a dome. Statistically they are as close as can be and you would be hard pressed to argue Brady has had a better supporting cast.

Full disclosure: I have too much time on my hands today, and this is long.

Yes, but look at the teams they played to *get* their QBRs as high as they are. Peyton’s got *STACKED* going against a garbage-tier (even if somewhat highly rated) Denver defense in the mid 2000s, and against the Chiefs.

Brady, by contrast, was more frequently paired against the AFC’s dominant defenses– the Ravens, the Jets, the Steelers (y’know, in the 2000-oughts). And Brady, while always good, didn’t start turning it on to become *great* personally (statistically) and seem like a credible threat to Manning’s numbers until Moss came in in 2007.

Manning could beat almost any team in the league if it was a matter of offense vs. offense– including, at times, Brady. But if it was his offense vs. a great defense, he floundered, often. When he was losing to the Patriots, it was when their defense was lights out. When he lost deeper in the playoffs, it was when he wasn’t going against offense-only teams, it was when he was facing strong defenses (until 2014, that was mostly always true).

Brady vs. the Ravens of the ‘oughts is obviously worse than Brady vs. the Jaguars of recent memory. But he’s *less* worse during that stretch than Peyton was.

In 2003, he was against Denver, the Chiefs, and the Patriots. Vs. Denver’s defense (#9, and the outlier), he had a 158.3 (he decimated them in the regular season that year, too; Denver’s defense was really pretty bad, but benefited by playing a super weak schedule. Still, it’s a significant outlier). Vs. the Chiefs #29 defense, he had a 138.7. Against the Patriots #1 ranked defense, he posted a 35.5. We can discount the Chiefs (since they are a bad defense), but must include Denver. We could break it down if we wanted to, but averaging the two games isn’t completely awful, and comes to a 96.9– not bad! Still lower than his 99 on the season, but not bad at all. I’d like to exclude the Broncos, because their defense didn’t belong in the top 10, but that’s a whole extra layer.

2004 again saw Peyton vs. Denver, and again, Peyton had stellar numbers– 145.7 this game. Against the #2 ranked Patriots? 69.3. Ouch! Still, the average is 107.5 vs.. 121.1 in the regular season. A fall of almost 14 points!

2005, Peyton was up against the #3 ranked Steelers. He put up a decent showing– 90.9 rating. His regular season rating was 104.1, a drop of 13.2.

In 2006, the Chiefs weren’t a top 10 team, so for the purpose of my analysis, they are excluded (which actually helps Peyton, since his rating was a sub-par 71.9 that game). The defense bailed Peyton out vs. the Ravens #1 ranked defense, though– he put up a whopping 39.6 (fortunately for Peyton, McNair put up a 49.9). Against the Patriots #2 ranked defense, he put up a 79.1. Against the Bears #3 ranked defense? 81.8. His rating on the season? 101.0. That’s a significant drop of 28 points. But man, his defense showed up and played HARD.

In 2007, against the #5 ranked Chargers, he put up a 97.7 rating, which isn’t awful, and only .3 lower than his regular season’s 98 rating that year. Of course, he threw two key picks (one unforced) that decided the game, and Rivers went for a 130+ rating v.s the Colts #1 ranked defense. Whoops.

2008 we exclude– the Chargers were a #15 defense.

2009 we see the second anomaly– the year Peyton helped the Colts in the playoffs. Peyton against the Ravens #3 defense, put up 87.9. Against the Jets #1, though, Peyton put up a whopping 123.6. We exclude the Saints bad defense (which helps Peyton, since his rating that game was 88.5). This leaves us with a 105.8– the first time Peyton actually put up *better* numbers against good defenses in the playoffs than his rating in the regular season (99.9).

2010 we again see Peyton not really blameable for his team’s loss. His 108.7 rating against the Jets #6 defense was pretty good, especially considering his mediocre (by Peyton-Manning-only-standards) 91.9 of the regular season.

2011 is The Year of the Neck.

2012 we exclude, since the Ravens weren’t a top 10 defense (this helps, though, since Peyton’s 88.3 rating isn’t included in my analysis vs. his 105.8 rating on the year).

2013, we exclude the Chargers (#11 defense), the Patriots (#26), but include the incredible 2013 Seahawks defense (#1), where Manning takes an unjust amount of blame in a game I wish never happened (except that it set up Fox’s firing the next year). Manning’s 73.5 was especially sad vs. his 115.1 rating on the season. As a heavy Broncos fan, I will say categorically and without any doubt whatsoever that this is 100% on John Fox, and Peyton played far better than his rating reflects. I think Seattle would have won the game under almost any circumstance, but it should have been closer. Man I’m glad Fox is with Cutler so they can suck together.

2014 we exclude, because the Colts defense was a tepid #19. Manning’s 75.5 was still pretty bad, though, compared to his 101.5 on the season.

2015 feels like a year we shouldn’t include, because it was the UnManningest of Manning years, but let’s go ahead and include it anyway. Pittsburgh we don’t include– not a top 10 defense. New England and Carolina we include, though. Petyon put up one of his best showings of the year against New England, at 90.1, managing to throw 0 INTs in what I think may have been his 2nd best personal performance in the playoffs ever. The story of that game was obviously Denver *decimating* Tom Brady (fun note– Denver is the only team Brady has a losing record against), but less stated is that Peyton did really well. It wasn’t mind-blowing stats– 176 yards, 2 TDs, 3 sacks taken, 1 fumble lost. But he did what was needed, and played within his team better than he ever did under Fox or (excluding his other Ring year), any of his other coaches before Kubiak. Against Carolina’s #6, Peyton put up a 56.6… but again, he essentially did what was needed in avoiding too many turnovers (2, neither of which was actually Peyton’s fault), and taking sacks instead of making bad passes (which had plagued him in his other low-rated games). Again, his defense bailed him out– which, y’know, I don’t actually fault him for. It’s a team game, and sometimes, when everyone on your team is better than you (and other than his right tackle, everyone was), you just need to play not to lose, and that’s your job. The Panthers D played better than a #6 team, but man. Denver’s D was a thing of beauty that year, I would argue better than Seattle’s defense, and better than the 2002 Bucs or Ravens (but not better than the ’85 Bears). But that’s a different debate.

Overall, we see Peyton play 16 playoff games against top 10 defenses throughout his career, which is really an enormous task for any QB, and the fact that he won 7 of them really should ease some criticism he’s faced from folks (I should make note– I think Peyton is far better in the playoffs than most Peyton detractors do). And he only lost a couple of games, very early in his career, with by-far his worst coaching and team support, against mediocre teams. The teams Peyton lost to from 2003 onward would go on to win the Super Bowl 6 times (literally half the time they lost in the playoffs over that stretch).

NOW! let’s look at Brady in the same span.

2001: we exclude the Raiders (#19), but include the Steelers and the Rams. Brady’s 84.3 and 86.2 sure look mediocre. Of course, his rating on the year was 86.5, so… his fall of 1.25 isn’t that bad.

2003: We exclude the Titans (#13), and the Colts (#20), but include the Cardiac Cats (#10). Brady’s 100.5 outshone his 85.9 on the season. That’s a net rise of 14.6.

2004: We exclude the woeful Colts (#29 yardage, #19 points), but we include the Steelers #1 and Eagles #2. Brady’s dominant, 130.5 vs. the Steelers was a shellacking. His 110.2 against the Eagles wasn’t quite as dominant, but still very impressive, especially considering his 92.6 rating on the season– a 27.75 improvement!

2005: Denver beats the Patriots on the strength of a Champ Baily INT that should have been ruled a turnover after he fumbled it out of the end zone. Fortunately for Denver fans, Ed Hochuli loves the Broncos (seriously, they’re something like 8-0 with him reffing). Still, Tom threw 2 INTs vs. Denver’s okay-but-not-great defense with a great pass rush and terrible (except for Champ, who deserves Cantonization– love you Champ!) secondary, and put up a disappointing 74 rating after his 2nd best season at 92.3, an 18.3 decline.

2006, against the Jets #6 defense, Brady posted a 101.6 rating. Against the Chargers #7, in arguably his worst post season game ever, 57.6 (OUCH!). Overall, a 79.6 rating vs. his 87.9 rating on the season. The game vs. the Colts #23 defense is excluded.

2007 sees the Chargers again with a top-ten D (#5), and again Brady looks bad (66.4, 3 picks). What’s up withe the Chargers? I mean, P.Rivs did his best to tank that one, too (46.1), but still. This was the Patriots Year That Almost Was (ty Eli), and a 66.4. OUCH! Of course, the week before, Brady put up 141.4 on the Jags #10 defense (but c’mon– Jags!). The Giants I actually excluded the first time I ran this scenario, as their #17 scoring defense doesn’t put them in the top 10, but really, their defense showed the hell up to play, and their 5 sacks on Brady had at least as much influence on the game as Tyree’s catch after Eli’s even more clutch movement to keep that play alive (seriously– that was the best single QB play I’ve ever seen, and the fact that it came with a bad-form-but-memorable catch in a clutch situation easily increases its mythological importance). So, let’s include Brady’s 82.5 performance here, just for the sake of argument, since the Giants at least had a top-ten yardage defense on the year. This leaves us with a 20.43 drop, which is pretty significant in Tom’s legacy. In fact, this particular post season has to haunt him more than any other. He fell harder than Peyton’s median (12.7) from his regular season play. And the Giants… man, I like the Patriots more than NYG, but that game, they earned it, and I was rooting for them (in part because it’s literally the only game I’ve ever bet money on, and I picked the Giants to win).

2008, Brady goes down with an injury, because why not.

2009, Brady goes up against a very-good-to-great Ravens D. Not all time, but still, they were scarier than their numbers showed. At #5, Brady put up a 49.1 rating, which, let’s face it, sucks. This is a bigger fall off than Peyton had in 2013 (41.6 vs. 47.1). If it hadn’t been against Flacco’s 10, man, I dunno– seriously, Flacco went 4/10 for 34 yards and an INT, and won the game. It helps when you run it 46 times for 4 TDs– seriously, I need to go back and watch that game.

2009 sees the Year of the WTF, wherein Mark freaking Sanchez posts a 127.3 rating turd on New England’s #8 scoring defense, which is totally WTFable until you realize they had the 31 ranked passing defense. Still, Brady’s pedestrian 89 isn’t anything to write home about, #6 ranked defense or not. The 22 point drop hurts his legacy somewhat.

2011 we exclude Denver’s garbage-tier 24th ranked defense. It was the Year of Tebow, wherein that defense gets a ton of credit, but really, it wasn’t all that great, and yay! We can spark yet another Tebow debate. Or get athlete’s foot. Imma go with the athlete’s foot. Anyway, after that, it’s the Ravens #3 defense, wherein Brady drops another turd (what’s with him, right?) at 57.5 and 2 Ints. Somehow, the Patriots still win (because Belichick is a boss, and Ernie Adams is a genius who will never be fully appreciated). The Giants don’t get counted here, again, because their defense was trash on the season. Still, they did an excellent job that game.

In 2012, we see Brady once again facing top-10 defenses (in fact, he’s been against at least one every year of he’s been in the playoffs to this point, while Manning had 3 years facing none; he still lost in all 3 of those years). With the #9 Texans, Brady drops a 115 bomb. The Ravens we exclude at their #12 ranking. They were really a mediocre defense that year, even though they won it all. It sticks in my craw as the kind of story (like the 2005 Steelers) that *feels* manufactured, even though I don’t believe it was (though I would believe evidence of a playoffs-fix for the 2005 Steelers. Seriously, screw 2005).

2014 sees the #6 ranked Ravens, and Seattle’s fearsome #1 ranked defense included, while the #19 Colts get the bounce. Brady’s 99.3 rating here is okay, but what stands out to me is the 101.1 rating vs. Seattle. That was a great Super Bowl, and Carrol’s decision not to trust Lynch easily falls into the record books as the most-criticized-correct-decision ever (seriously– Lynch was bad on 3rd-and-4th-and-shorts that year, with a substantially lower success rate than Wilson’s passing in identical situations. That was just one hell of an interception). But for the second time in two years, Brady out-performed his season passer rating against top-ten defenses, with his 100.2 average beating his 97.4 for the season.

2015: The Chiefs come in here at #3, which helps since Denver’s coming soon, and I think Brady needed these last four weeks to spend time recovering from the beating he got there. But his 103.5 showing vs. Reid helps cement my belief that Andy Reid is almost as over-rated as any coach has ever been. It helps make up for a truly heroic (insofar as anything can be called heroic) performance vs. Denver that sees his passer rating tank, in a game that demonstrates better than any other that A) it’s not all about the quarterback, and B) the rating system can be seriously, seriously flawed when looked at in context, because I can think of no quarterback in NFL history, Montana inclusive, who could have done anything more against the defense that showed up that day. Brady was hit more than he’s ever been hit in an NFL game, and he was looking at an average of something like 3 seconds to get rid of the ball, and he *still* only had 4 sacks and 2 INTs (neither of which was really his fault). Almost any other QB would have coughed up more sacks and a couple fumbles (*cough* CAM *cough*), but Brady, though hurried, never looked rattled. My respect for Brady as a football player reached unprecedented heights that game. still, 56.4. ouch.

Overall, we see Brady facing 19 top-ten defenses vs. Manning playing against 16. Manning had 2 extra years on Brady in which this has happened, mind you, with both losing 1 to injury.

Overall, Manning’s rating works out to 88.8~ against top 10 teams, an average rating of 99.24, falling by . If we exclude 2015, it doesn’t really change much (a 10.47 fall vs. 11.74 fall in ratings, with the 2015 season actually helping him in this context). If we exclude the 2003 and 2004 Denver defenses (I’d like to, but can’t in full disclosure), we see a drop of 20.5. That’s pretty harsh. how about for Brady, in the same contexts?

Brady’s total ratings against top 10 teams in the playoffs is 89.8– better than Peyton’s. His average rating in those years overall? 96.9– lower than Peyton’s.

Inclusive of all teams, and adding in one more bad game for Brady with the Giants of 2007, Peyton fell by 10.5~ points on his rating, vs. Brady’s 7. It’s not a huge difference, but it’s a difference. If we exclude 2003 & 2004 Denver from this scenario (and I think we should, as the point was comparing great-defenses-faced, and neither was even *good*, even if statistically it quirked out that way), then Peyton goes down to 17.83 loss (a 10 point swing vs. Brady), if we include 2015, or a 21.9 loss (a whopping 14.9 swing) vs. Brady if we don’t include Peyton 2015.

Brady performs better against good teams. I’ve got today off, and if you really, really want I’ll redo my research of their play vs. top 10 teams in the regular season (tip: Brady does even better in these than Peyton does). Brady has also *COST* his team fewer playoff wins than Peyton has with untimely turnovers (there are at least 3 games I’m aware of wherein the blame can fall squarely and easily on Peyton making bad decisions and bad throws, and I would be willing to bet there’s at least 2 more; I can think of *MAYBE* one in Brady’s career), and sometimes the “when” of a bad play matters more than the frequency of them.

Yes, Tom Brady has had much better teams for most of his successful NFL career, and he has unquestionably had better coaching throughout the entirety of it. Dungy was not a good coach against good teams, whereas Belichick has been an excellent coach against even very good teams, and Dungy was the best coach by a mile Peyton had until Kubiak. There are a lot of other things that go into questions like these that can never be completely answered. My idea that Brady is better than Manning isn’t based on rings, however, ant it isn’t base solely on his 2002 performance (in fact, while I mentioned it, I did not include it in my statistics here because the Jets weren’t a sufficiently good enough defense to merit it).

Brady has fewer mistakes at critical moments in the playoffs, and Brady has faced a smaller drop off against top-ten defense than Manning has, and if you remove the “top ten” and only include “passes the smell test of actually good”, then Brady shines even more.

I don’t believe Peyton was bad. I don’t believe that Peyton is a horrible QB, and he performed substantially better in the playoffs than many of his detractors say, because just as many over-rate the importance of his failure in 2002, many ignore how well he did in the playoffs vs. the Chiefs and the Broncos. My point was not his total-playoff-performance. My point was against top-ten defenses in the playoffs, and he is demonstrably, unquestionably, worse than Brady in that regard. Most significantly, to me, though, is this: Brady out-performed his season ratings in 2003, 2004, 2012, and 2014– 3 of those four years, the Patriots won the Super Bowl. And in 2001, his “fall off”, in his first year as a starter, was 1.25. That’s a pretty darned credible showing, and it can help demonstrate that Brady was in fact helping his team win significantly. Manning, by contrast, won in 2006 with one of his statistically-worst-ever playoff fall-offs, dropping down 34.17 points from his season averages. The only three years wherein Manning had above-season-average performances were in 2009 (wherein his INT vs. the Saints arguably cost the Colts the game), in 2010 (wherein he played well but lost), and in 2015 (wherein, while his rating was higher than his season rating, his 73.35 showing is the 2nd worst in any year in which he faced dominant defenses, ironically only bested by his 2006 showing where he won the Super Bowl, too, and wherein it was only better than his season rating because, come on– 67.9. In both cases, he was *CLEARLY* and unquestionably carried heavily by his team despite his mistakes and lack of production).

When Brady has performed at his absolute best, the Patriots have won 3/4s of the time. When he’s done his worst, they’ve lost as miserably as any team. When Peyton has been at his best, his teams have never won anything, which just means he had no team around him. But when he’s been at his *worst*, literally, his teams have won. This tells me that far more of the Patriots success can be put on Tom’s shoulder’s than the Colts and Broncos success can be put on Peyton’s, while both can be blamed squarely for losses when they have performed badly (and both have sometimes performed well in games in which they lost). Brady performed his best when the offense around him was the worst he ever had (everyone injured in 2012, and the “meh” offenses of the Patriots from 2001-2006).

And please, don’t put words in my mouth: I did not say that Brady is vastly superior to Manning, in the playoffs or otherwise. I just said he’s demonstrably better, and he is.

My point was that the idea that Peyton is absolutely incapable in the playoffs is false – his decrease from career regular season to playoff record is 9.1, while Brady’s playoff rating is 8.4 points below his regular season record. Both are statistically worse in the playoffs, which makes sense, given that the competition is better at that time.

And I’m not sure why the discussion of the best of all time is ONLY limited to the playoffs. Peyton has not had the postseason success, and is statistically not quite as good, though Brady doesn’t outstrip him nearly as much statistically as people would have you believe. And of course, even then it’s impossible to really say any statistic is an individual one, because the QB must have people to block, catch, run, etc.

If you look during the regular season, Manning led the league in rating 3 times to Brady’s 2. Manning led in QBR, generally a more accurate stat, 6 times since they started keeping the stat in 2006. Brady led the league in QBR 1 time, 2007. Manning led the league in yardage 3 times, to Brady’s 2. TD’s are 4 to 3 to Manning. 5 MVPs for Manning, 2 for Brady.

And since rating is pretty flawed, we can look at QBR (back to 2006 when it was created) which is also not perfect but I think is generally considered a better measure of QB performance.

They actually split both the regular season and postseason stats, 5 wins each. However, Manning’s average QBR over this time period was 76.3/67.0, dropping 9.3, while Brady’s was 76.8/63.6, dropping 13.2

This analysis is a little bit biased for Manning, given that it discounts Brady’s success before 2006 (during which time they did not keep the QBR stat) but it is at least somewhat balanced by the inclusion of Peyton’s stinker season last year.

Ironically, since 2006, QBR suggests that Brady is the better regular season quarterback, who drops off more during the playoffs, while Manning is the better postseason QB who exhibits less of a postseason performance drop. Literally the exact opposite of their reputations.

And think of some of the ways they have won or lost games! Brady wins in 2014 on the Butler INT that is retroactively considered one of the worst play calls in history. Brady loses in 2007 because of the helmet catch! Peyton wins last season even though he sucks because Von Miller is Darth Vader playing DE. Peyton loses to the Ravens when his DB, whose only job is “don’t fall down” manages to fall down!

By the way, this is a fun discussion that I am enjoying – I don’t mean to come off as a know it all or like I am being pissy about this so I hope it doesn’t read that way! I appreciate the time and thought and discussion!

You addressed my primary argument against using QBR– Brady had enormous success before 2006, while Manning had pretty much none in the post season.

And I agree that rating is very flawed. The first time I tried to tackle this question from an objective basis, I didn’t use it. QBR is flawed, too, though less so. But a lot of it comes down to sniff test: are they playing as well as we are used to, or do they look more flustered and less leaderly? Manning, particularly pre-2009, tended to look down-right awful unless he was against a bad defense. In 2009 and 2010, he mostly seemed to turn a corner, and it’s kind of unfair in Manning-analysis that his worst pass of the season happened at the most critical moment of the Super Bowl, but there we are. A large part of greatness, when you’re trying to parse out a top-10 or #1 kind of discussion, *MUST* include performance-when-it-matters-most, grace under pressure, as it were. Manning, at his best, is phenomenal, no question. Manning, at his worst, has been a liability across multiple years. Brady, it’s hard to make that case.

I try, whenever possible, to avoid stats in these discussions, for the simple fact that there are too many of them and how you weight them will vary far-too-often based on the point you are arguing. Yes, Manning lead the league more in rating, yards, and TDs (MVPs don’t even merit consideration in this conversation, as that is a popularity contest limited almost exclusively to QBs and RBs because sports journalists are lackwit no-nothings who rely more on giving favorable press than objective analysis), but his teams were built entirely around offense excepting 1 year of his career (2015), where Brady’s teams were built all around defense from 2001-2006, and have been trending more toward defense as an emphasis the last 3 years. Moss, even in his twilight, was brilliant, and Gronk is Gronk, but I’ll take James, Wayne, and Harrison over any crew that Brady had, without question. Manning also had by far the better offensive line for most of his career than Brady had.

Also, I *WILL* concede that, if you start from 2006, the reputations switch– Manning had more success in 2006-2015 than he had in 1999-2005, and Brady had more from 2001-2005 (or rather, at least as much), though Brady obviously still has time to potentially swing that (2009-2011 was particularly brutal to Brady). But… that’s severely altering the scope of talking career accomplishments to the point of breaking metrics.

Your point about “the way they have won or lost games” is part of why I strive very hard to not include rings in my analysis, *UNLESS* it is play by a particular compared-player who made the pivotal or determinate play in that game. eg– Brady doesn’t get as much credit for 2014 as he does for 2001, 2003, and 2004, because he wasn’t as instrumental in the final play, or in setting up the final play (though he still deserve a ton for 2014), simply because it was a *GREAT* interception that doesn’t happen 95/100 plays. Similarly, I don’t mark Brady off for the Helmet Catch, or the 2015 loss to Denver, because, well, he was force choked up and down the field by what I think is the 2nd best defense of all time (that’s a whole other analysis, but man, the 2000 Ravens are severely overrated), and did better than I think any other QB playing today could have done. Peyton similarly gets little (though some) credit for his 2015 wins, and what credit he does get is entirely for playing within his severe limitations. He does, however, get some blame for the loss to the Saints, because, well, he threw that game-deciding pick, and it was mostly his fault.

Lastly, to address what I think is an important but often unanswered point, the reason most people look at the playoffs is, A) you’re playing against better teams, and great players should beat great teams, and B) it’s easier to analyze the importance of a single play. However, the regular season, while it favors Manning with raw numbers, doesn’t particularly favor him with contextualized information. His teams have been built around offense for longer than Brady’s have been, and Manning had better weapons around him for *most* of his career than Brady’s had (even when Brady’s got to the point of being very good). Manning, generally, had weaker defenses to play against (not substantially so, but it does make a difference). Manning played far more games in domes (every QB, pretty much, plays better in domes), and fewer in out-door winter (which is another reason Playoffs are considered– there is a world of difference between a playoff game in Denver or Green Bay and one in San Diego or Indianapolis). A lot of these contextual differences become nightmarish to account for over the course of multiple 16-game seasons, but become easier to digest at the playoff level. It’s especially confounded in football, because more than any other sport, it’s a team game. How much did the Colts’ superior offensive line account for Manning’s success vs. Brady statistically? How much the over-all better receiving corps? How much the game-plan designed around the pass? How much was based on the Colts having an inferior defense and *NEEDING* to put up more points to win games with no-huddle hurry-ups, while the Patriots could slow it down and thus have fewer plays? There is no real definitive answer for that, simply because the NFL is a league that doesn’t play as well with statistics as baseball does– one play matters more in football than any one pitch (typically) matters in baseball, not only over the course of a game but especially of a season. How you weight *anything* is silly, because from year to year, things will matter less, and with, at most, 20 games per year, you simply do not have a valid enough sample size to determine any kind of causation. Rules change, rosters change, coaching changes, and with each bit, we lose control of analysis.

But the playoffs crystallize seasons to a single game, perhaps unfairly, perhaps fairly. You see what a player is like when the chips are down, and it’s much easier to make that eye-test.

Still, if you *want* regular season analysis, I would still recommend looking at either only top-ten defenses, or against playoff teams of that year. How good a great QB is against bad teams isn’t indicative of their quality vs. greatness; comparison of good/great to good/great is what matters most, and that is still another reason why we usually use playoff performance when discussing great vs. great, and are often willing to ignore regular season records: if a team this year plays against the AFC North (overall very strong), the AFC West (again, overall not bad), or the NFC West (arguably the best division in football for the last 5 years), their stats will flounder compared to teams facing up against the AFC South, NFC South, or AFC East (Patriots notwithstanding). In the playoffs, you’re at *least* going against a mediocre-team-that-got-lucky (Denver 2003/2004), and so beating them matters more than, say, beating the Factory of Sadness… well, pick almost any year since the 1960s, really. But we can look, and we can see– is he poised under pressure or does he cave? When he makes mistakes, are they at critical moments of the game? Are they driven by his misreading a play or mistake, or are they driven by his teammates? We can make those calls much easier over the course of a single game than we can over 20.

So, some of the playoffs-matter-most isn’t really logically legitimate, but some of it is observationally necessary, and some of it is statistically valid. One problem with our increasingly categorized society, is that “intangibles” lose their importance, simply because they can’t be quantified easily, and they can be weighed against each other even less easily than can normal numeric data (which is still enormously difficult to parse). They become discarded afterthoughts, as much because of people like Skip (ALL HE DOES IS WIN!) as because people who aren’t interested in discovery but in being right dismiss or downplay whatever doesn’t suit their cause (they do this with numbers, too, dismissing what hurts and emphasizing what helps).

So, I dunno. I value how a QB plays when they are in a tough match more than a cake-walk. I value how a QB performs when games are close more than when it’s a blow out. I value how often a QB’s mistakes cost a team the game vs. how often they correct their mistakes (which disproportionately punishes 4th quarter mistakes, which by corollary makes 4th quarter play more important than 1st-3rd quarter play). I value poise– how they look after they’ve been hit, and how their play progresses or degrades after being ground into the turf a couple times. I also value things that have no clear identifier, things that are contingent upon the individual– leadership, improvisation, adjustment… those are areas that, for example, Roethisberger excels beyond any QB in the league (excepting maybe now Russel Wilson).

The offensive line thing is hard to look at too, because it’s so hard to quantify the quality of a line. Most offensive line statistics I can find revolve pretty much strictly around success running the ball, or not giving up sacks. Obviously those are good indicators, but they can’t always tell the full story. In looking on Football Outsiders, one thing really jumps out to me – Peyton Manning just does not take sacks. But I don’t think that’s always indicative of a good line. If the QB takes a lot of short drops and throws a lot of quick passes, he might not get sacked but that doesn’t mean his line is very good – just that he doesn’t give the opposition time to get the sack. Likewise, guys like Roethlisberger or Russell Wilson take more sacks because they are more willing to extend a play.

That’s why it’s such a fun discussion and thought experiment – it’s one of the last great “bar debates” we can have where it’s not a matter of Googling the exact answer. There is no definitive right answer.

Like you said, so much of it comes down to the “eye test” and everyone sees things differently. Whereas you may see Manning not playing well in the clutch, against better teams, I might see his team simply not being as good as the opposition, despite Manning’s best efforts. Maybe he makes more mistakes because he has to take more chances, because he dragged a team of 6-10 talent to 11-5 and the playoffs.

And the eye test is really just as flawed as most of the statistics we can cook up, because you’re always more likely to see what you want to see.

I think the most interesting analysis was provided in that link I posted earlier, which I will leave as my ‘closing argument’.

I’m more upset at the refs than you for the original call. The ball was in Duke’s hand, so there was no ball in the pile, yet they still ruled in favor of a team, even though they really had no idea who had it. Did they just guess? How often do they do this? It’s worrying.

It becomes even worse when the league comes out after the fact and says that no mistakes were made. Good god what a joke of an officiating crew. Oh, wait, it was Jeff Triplette, the worst ref in the league, so no surprise here.

1) Short-circuit any sort of “QB controversy” discussion
2) Set up Brady to roll in next week, lay waste to the hapless Browns, and be the hero, cursing us with a week of talking heads slathering Brady – “Let me tell you right now Mike Tirico, this Tom Brady guy has got IT. He has IT and his teammates have an unflappable belief in Tom Brady. I love this guy.” – Jon Gruden
3) Help Rex Ryan keep his job in Buffalo, ensuring their middling performance for the rest of the season

System fucking QB? The 2008 team was virtually the same team that went undefeated a year before and probably would’ve again if Brady didn’t tear his fucking ACL. Also Cassel was no slouch he pretty good those first two years in Kansas that everyone conveniently forgets. Look at the teams the pats played without Touchdown Tommy. Jimmy G didn’t win against Arizona because he played great in Bill’s system he won because that cardinals missed a field goal. Miami played like they took fans from the stand as their offense and defense and played them for the first half. Brisset didn’t do shit that game. The texans are fucking awful this year. Also if this system is so good how come we didn’t score a single point against the fucking bills. Tom Brady is the GOAT. Know your role and shut your mouth.

Peyton Manning last year was basically Trent Dilfer, so I dunno if that counts (particularly versus the rest of his career). If anything, Siemian is the better fit for Kubiak’s system. Or are we forgetting that Joe Flacco (I say this as a Ravens fan with nothing but love for Flacco, but he’s an unremarkably-above-average QB, at best) had a career year under Kubiak?

So yeah, Siemian is a system QB. As long as it gets the W’s and not the L’s, who gives a crap? People act like “system QB” is some sort of massive insult to Brady, when in reality, it’s just saying that Brady might not have been nearly as successful were he not paired with Belichick. And Montana probably wouldn’t have been nearly as successful without Bill Walsh. Nobody’s saying Montana is bad, either.

Few to no QBs get it done without good support from coaching and their team. Admitting that Brady isn’t Football Jesus (that’s Charlie Whitehurst, anyway) isn’t slander, no matter how many indignant Pats fans act like it is.

He did have a good second year in KC, but he’s been in the league for 12 years and has 2 good years, one of them his year as the Patriots starter, on his resume. He’s been benched everywhere he was given the role of 1st QB.

He’s not Manziel terrible or anything, but he’s definitely a below average starter in the NFL.

Yes. A below average starter on the most stacked Pats team the Pats built went 11-5. What if Cassel had to start in 2011 where we basically had no defense? Or 2013 where pretty much every skill position player got injured? Just because Belichick hasn’t had Brady only in the situations where the rest of the roster is loaded doesn’t mean Belichick can win with everybody.

It’s not the same with the other examples. Manning has a track record of success across multiple teams and 4 different head coaches so scratch that argument.

Montana AND Young primarily won superbowls because of playing with a Top 5 defense, Bill Walsh and the greatest WR of all time. The Niners were also the first team to spend a lot on players. I’d take Fabre and Elway over them because of what they accomplished with less. Did I mention Montana never had a 4000 yard season? (Note that yards are not an indication of success, but instead an indication of a good team, defense, running game ECT.)

I do think Brady is really good (future hall of famer and easily top 10 all time), but do you really think he could win 13 games with the Browns. Manning proved that hes the difference in 12+ wins with a team that was essentially the Browns.

Sheer numbers of passing yards doesn’t translate to W’s.
The Lions are awful, so are the Colts, so Stafford and Luck are on top of the NFL in passing yards because they have to throw the ball 24/7 to get them back into the game quickly.

The 2 most important stats in the NFL on Offense and Defense are 3rd Down conversions (Cowboys O, Texans D) and Red Zone efficency (Colts O, Vikings D)

Manning had success with multiple coaches and teams (although he only truly led one of those four coaches to a Super Bowl win; in the other three appearances, he threw a pick-six, lost 43-8 in an appalling overall team effort, and finally managed to do less than any other Super Bowl-winning quarterback in history to grab his second), but it is not like Brady has had that chance (and for what it is worth, Elway is one of the best managers in history, and despite his struggles with the Texans Kubiak is relatively brilliant in his own right).

Manning might be better for a bad team to have, but Brady is better for a good team to have. Plays better against great defences, plays better late in the season, plays better outside, and far less frequently loses games for his teams. Put him on the Broncos in 2015 and they probably go undefeated. He has been to the Super Bowl six times, and each time he put his team ahead by the two-minute warning. That is greatness.

I guess that plays back to my point. Winning is a team stat not a individual stat.

Because Brady has a good team/best coach of all time, he’s had the opportunity to play in 6 super bowls. I don’t disagree he’s the right guy for the Patriots dynasty.

What I’m not sure of is if he would have a similar level of success as other QBs who carry their team – for example Drew Brees (won super bowl with 23rd ranks D) or Aaron Rodgers (won superbowl with 25th ranked D) – if he traded places. I do know Manning has carried more successful teams than anyone and that his teams beat teams they had no business beating solely because of him. When the Patriots play we expect them to win every time regardless of who’s playing QB. That’s good enough for me can you smell the greatness.

I think this is the tell. Brady and Belichick are absolutely perfect for each other and certainly key to each other’s success. Brady has never had to drag a team into the playoffs like Brees, Rodgers, Marino, or pretty much any other great QB has.

The reason I discount Brady a bit is because I think if you stuck either of them in the opposite situation (Brady with a mediocre coach, Belichick with a mediocre QB), Belichick would perform better overall.

Brady also carried that 2013 Pats squad who made it to the AFCCG, despite losing HIS TOP 5 RECEIVERS from the previous year. He won the division and got the 2 seed in the AFC at 12-4. Peyton never had to do that. Peyton was always surrounded by talent and never ran out of excuses.

Do you not remember the 2006 season when Tom Brady’s #1 and #2 receivers were Reche Caldwell and Jabar fucking Gaffney?? I can’t believe they got up 21-0 in that AFCCG — they had no business being there.

My favorite part about this is Eli. Eli’s teams drag him into the postseason (and or through 3 quarters of football), then when everyone switches to man coverage in the playoffs (or 4th quarter) hes balls out.

Both years Manning won the Super Bowl, he was atrocious in the playoffs and was buoyed by good defenses. Belichick handed him the AFCCG in 2006 and he “beat” a Rex Grossman led Bears squad. And then his second ring he was dragged by the Bronco’s defense. He’s been worse than mediocre in the playoffs.

Dave, what you’re critically forgetting is that the 2008 squad was STACKED and went 16-0 the regular season before. In 2007, with Brady at the helm, the pats went 16-0 and then lost in the playoffs. In 2008, they only went 11-5. You can very literally assume that Brady alone added those five wins because the rest of the squad was pretty unchanged. 5 fucking wins added! Even if we wanna say Cassel is an average (*chuckle*) QB, that still says Brady adds five wins over an average QB. That’s fucking unreal in a 16 game season. Are you going to argue manning isn’t the GOAT because the Broncos are 4-0 this year without him? Even without manning, they’re still damn good. So to say that Brady isn’t the Goat because the pats went 3-1 without him to start this season and because the pats went 11-5 without him with one of the most loaded squads in history is pretty asinine.

Cassel was relatively average at that time, and the Colts definitely declined in other ways from 2011 (whereas the Patriots should have been in better in 2008 considering their schedule became significantly, significantly easier… as indicated by the fact there were three 11-5 teams in the division).

Sure, Cassell was better than the scrubs that the Colts trotted out that season, though I don’t remember the Colts really having any truly significant changes aside from that so I am not sure what you mean by ‘definitely declined in other ways from 2011’. So it’s not a perfect analogy, because Curtis Painter would not have won 11 games with those Patriots.

But really, the Colts were so hopeless without Manning they totally punted on an entire season, while the Patriots had enough talent that even losing their MVP QB, they managed 11 wins and because the rare 11 win team to not make the playoffs.

So, since the Patriots beat an imploding Cardinals team, the always-shitty Dolphins, the “best team in a dumpster fire division” Texans, and got BLOWN OUT by the fucking Bills, Brady is a system QB?
Belichick is 19-19 on the Patriots without Brady. Matt Cassel took a stacked 16-0 team and didn’t even make the playoffs.

“All he has in his favor over Peyton are rings but rings are a team accomplishment”

That is just a ridiculous position to have. He has more impressive postseason statistics, more impressive outdoor statistics, more impressive cold-weather statistics. Peyton knew how to pile up yards and touchdowns against awful teams (thanks, AFC South) and played over half his career in a dome. Rings may be a team accomplishment, but even if you decide to irrationally discount Brady’s first three Super Bowls, I would easily take his 2007, 2011, and 2014 seasons over Manning’s 2006, 2009, and 2013 seasons.

Also, as other commenters have mentioned, Belichick’s record pre-Brady is hardly astounding, and there are a lot of flaws in saying “Oh, Matt Cassel went 11-5 with an otherwise unchanged 16-0 team facing a historically easy schedule,” as a reason for his greatness.

He shattered every meaningful single season passing record that year, but you’d take Brady’s 2014 over that? Is it because the Broncos lost to Seattle but the Patriots didn’t? You simply cannot ask for a better season from a pure offensive standpoint.

2014’s Seahawks were inferior to 2013’s and Belichick is a much better coach than John Fox so he had the right plan to take on the Hawks, who still almost won and the Patriots were victors thanks to a defensive play.

2013 Broncos averaged about 1 possession more per game, which is certainly a significant number but I don’t know if it’s a heck of a lot more. Their running statistics for the seasons are eerily similar – 4.1 ypc, 1873/1849 yards, 16/17 TD.

Ultimately, the Broncos did score more points, but you are right the Patriots were better on a per drive basis, so I think a pretty strong case can be made for either season.

I mean yeah thats pretty significant. 16 extra possessions is enough to make one offense look significantly better and one qb have 6 more TDs. Any per drive stat Pats performed better. 07 is hands down better by any efficiency stat which is amazing considering the schedule and the foxboro winters that year.

Right, because Brady didn’t take a team down by 10 in the 4th quarter against the #1 defense in the world and win the game — didn’t that Seahawks defense not let up more than one 4th quarter TD all year?? No, no, no it was ALL thanks to a defensive play.

Manning was also relentless against shitty teams and piled up 7-8 TDs in garbage time that year. Also he BARELY beat brees’ yardage record on the strength of a lateral that the official scorer deemed a pass. Manning’s 2013 wasn’t even manning’s best year in terms of efficiency, let alone every QB ever.

Though I do agree with Dave, Manning’s 2013>Brady’s 2014, Brady’s 2007>Manning’s 2013, because Brady was pushing the ball downfield with Moss and a whole host of weapons. Something like 50%+ of the Bronco’s yards that year were YAC, which was more about the receivers than Manning.

Yeah, Manning got to beat up the AFC South, while Brady has been forced to stand up to the triple headed juggernaut of the Bills/Dolphins/Jets… I won’t say the AFC South didn’t suck, but so did the AFC East. Because I am a loser with spare time, I figured out the average number of wins for 2nd place in the AFC East and South since 2002, and over that time span the 2nd best team in the East averaged 9.14 wins per season, while the South it was 9.64, so there’s no real reason to believe the South was significantly worse.

I think the biggest difference between Manning and Brady’s career come down to 2 things…
1) Brady has played his entire career with the best coach the NFL has ever seen
2) Brady took over a team that was capable of winning the Super Bowl, while Manning took over a team that was so bad they had earned the first pick.

Brady is hands down a first ballot hall of famer, all time great QB that has to be mentioned on any sane person’s short list of GOAT. But I don’t think he actually is the GOAT.

And rings ARE a team accomplishment. Of course they should have some bearing on how you evaluate individual players, but there are some limits there. Honestly, we don’t have to look any further than last year to see exactly how poor a measure of QB performance a ring can be…

Yeah, but 10 AFCCG? That’s not all just Belichick. Brady has elevated the talent around him and come through when his team needs it, something that Manning never did. Brady managed to keep pace with Manning in terms of production throughout his career, despite the fact that Manning played with Marvin Harrison, Reggie Wayne, Edgerrin James, Joseph Addai, etc. all HOF players or Hall of very good players. Manning is way overrated. Not to mention that Tony Dungy is a HOF coach. So that removes Manning’s excuses of having no coaching help.

Harrison and Wayne were both good, but Brady also had Welker and Edelman as his own Harrison, and he also had human cheat code Randy Moss for a bit. Wayne’s good, but he’s never been in the same class of potential as Moss. Edgerrin James was also pretty good, though when he wasn’t playing with Manning he never averaged more than 4.0 YPC or scored more than 7 TDs. Joseph Addai is certainly not a Hall of Fame or even a Hall of Very Good player, sorry.

The only place where Manning’s teammates have been significantly better for most of his career is getting away with murder (Murderin’ Marvin is 1 for 1, while Hernandez is going to go 0 for 3).

Tony Dungy is also the guy that the Buccaneers traded a first round pick to get rid off, then promptly won a Super Bowl without. I like Dungy, but he is a vastly overrated coach.

The AFC south did (until the end) have some good teams in it [McNair Titans (11-5 in 02, 12-4 in 03), 05 and 07 Jags (12-4 both times), 08 Titans (13-3)]. All the AFC East had was “you play to win the game” 02 Jets, two 10-6 Jets (04,06), wildcat (08 Phins 11-5 after 1-15; no Brady to beat), and unsexy rexy with butt fumble

Rodgers at his best is better than anyone else’s best today; in the all-time category, Marino, Elway, Brady, Manning, Rodgers, and Graham all deserve consideration.

Starr and Bradshaw easily trounce Young as most underappreciated, as, I would argue, does Roethlisberger. Kenny Stabler might well fit in this category, as well… it’s hard for me to be objective about the Raiders.

Unitas is the most over-romanticized by far (though still a top-7 all time without real question), though a real case can be made for Montana, Marino, Manning, and Staubach in this category.

Elway is the QB I’d call who “did the most with the least” of any great. Tarkenton can fit in here, as could Rodgers.

Favre and Young as nominees as “did the least with the most” among the frequent nominees for top-10, with my vote going to Favre.

Best QBs with the Worst Coaches is exclusively an argument between Manning and Elway thus far. Kubiak’s future will determine whether Manning wins this or Elway– Shanahan = Dungy, or close enough as makes no difference in my book, but Phillips was an awful HC (incredible DC, though), and Reeves is really hard to judge, and I vacillate by the week between whether he was great or awful.

I’m only 33, so I don’t honestly remember a lot of those guys, like the Starrs, Grahams, Unitases (Uniti?) and such. I really don’t remember much about Montana even, I wasn’t that much of a football fan when I was young.

So yeah, I should have said that it was my list based on my relatively limited time as a football fan 🙂

You’re definitely onto something with Roethlisberger in the underappreciated category – much as I hate him (Bengals and Packers fan) that dude can play. But his career is still going on so I didn’t include him. And I still think Steve Young is criminally underappreciated by many.

Feel free to disagree with me on these, just please give reasons. I’m an 18 year old kid who has grown up in Era 4, so I may not have the perspective you older folks may have. Also, I’m a Pats and Bears fan, so my bias is probably showing.

Era 1:
First, Id’ break that into two groups: Pre-Otto Graham, and then end the second group not at 1960, but at 1966 (the year of Super Bowl I).

This leaves Baugh and Luckman alone from your list in Era 1A

Graham, Unitas, Jurgensen, Layne, and Tittle get my vote, in that order (though Baugh and Jurgensen can get shifted around freely). Starr can fit in there, too, bumping Unitas down one peg.

Era 2:
If we make that Super Bowl Era through 1980s rules changes (which isn’t a bad place to make the change), then we have Bradshaw, Staubach, Tarkenton, Fouts, Stabler, Dawson, and really no one else of historically great importance at QB (since Unitas, Jurgensen, and Starr belong in the Era 1B group). MAYBE Plunkett, and MAYBE Lamonica if we’re pushing for a top-10.

Era 3:
For almost any other purpose, I would split this at 1980 through 1993, with 1994 introducing the Salary Cap– that changed everything as much as the merger of the AFL and NFL did. With that said, I understand splitting it at 2000– you end the splits between “current generation” and “last generation” nicely, with Moon, Young, Marino, and Elway all out within 2 years of that, and Manning not really coming on line yet.

So: Montana #1, because… he just is.
Elway #2: I see no problem with this.
Young is #3, however– his stats are worse than Marino’s or Moon’s were, but in part that’s because half his career he was mostly benched behind Montana, and in part because Young’s most important years as a player came after the Salary Cap was a Thing. He was also a better all-around QB than Marino was, and while he had a better team than Marino had, he was also less of a liability.
Marino takes #4, bumped down because of Young going up, and remains well above Aikman as proof that rings aren’t ALL that matters.
Kelly goes up to #5– his offense in his hay day was the most dominant and punishing in the NFL, and Kelly doesn’t get anywhere near enough credit for making it work. He ran the misfortune of playing when the NFC was a genuine powerhouse that was wrecking shop on everyone, but Kelly’s influence in the NFL to this day lingers stronger than Marino’s does. Marino, while enormously talented as a passer, didn’t really change the way people approached the game– you couldn’t *coach* someone to Marino’s skillset. But Kelly… man, he doesn’t get all the credit, but his play was the first to advance on Walsh’s stolen-Cleveland Offense (seriously, Cleveland is hated– Walsh took his offense from Brown, adapted it minimally, and benefited enormously from rules changes in defense that Brown never coached under… it SHOULD be the Burning River Offense, or the Factory of Sadness offense, but nope. West Coast), and the up-temp, no-huddle-hurry-up offense he ran redefined offense as exciting in the NFL. Marino couldn’t have made it work any better.
Aikman– he had a phenomenal team around him, but were it not for concussions, he well have made his way further up the list. Sadly, the NFL gives no cares for your gray matter, and Aikman couldn’t maintain or prove his skills once the team disintegrated into Salary Cap Hell.

Moon– I wouldn’t really include him in an all-time greats list. He was all-time-okay. Very good within his time, and he was more than worthy as a starter, but his position in the Hall of Fame is political (not in a necessarily bad way). He was a good quarterback for a long time, but his records only start to hit when you include his time in the CFL, too, which… seems disingenuous. He never won anything of importance in the NFL (3-7 in the post season), and unlike every other player on this list, never even played in a Super Bowl. I may not give a lot of credit to rings, but you should at least make the dance to get into top-ten lists. Moon *did*, however, break barriers as far as being a black quarterback is concerned, and that is a thing of genuine importance, and he at least started (though it’s still not settled) the conversation that black quarterbacks could be more than just runners-who-sometimes-throw (not that the perception was ever valid– Doug Williams was a passer, and Cunningham was a pretty darned good passer, too, but racism be a big part of history, yo). Moon deserves his place in the Hall of Fame, but much more for his importance as a player than his actual performance in the NFL. I know, it’s not considered acceptable to make his race a factor, but that feels like an insult to the real importance of what he did, and denying that and trying to make it like it’s ONLY numbers, that his race didn’t matter (and I know, he didn’t want it to matter), dismisses much of his importance in NFL history. It also hurts his relative ranking here that so many great quarterbacks were clustered in at the same time– with his talent, in today’s NFL, he’d likely be a top 5. If he’d had a chance to play in the 66-80 era, he likely would have been a top 3. But man, 80-00 had a glut of talent.

Era 4:
Brady — I’ve gone into this at length elsewhere.
Manning
Roethelsomething — Two rings, better stats than 95% of football knows, and he’s done it on worse teams than anyone admits. His pocket presence is the best in the NFL, and *NO ONE* in the NFL can extend a play for as long, or stand up to abuse as well, as Roethelsomething has through his career. He’s an exceptional passer, who is simply overshadowed by the Brady-Manning duel.

Brees — I laughed for long and hard when the Chargers let him go. But I hate the Chargers. Brees, though, is a tough case to identify. There isn’t a more pass-wacky team in the NFL than the Saints under Brees, but that’s in part because they’ve HAD to be. For some reason, he’s a name I often forget (I don’t fantasy), and while he’s had a ton of huge games, possibly because I haven’t seen a lot of Saints games, I’ve never seen a real “WOW” or “it” factor… his game winning drives and 4th quarter come backs are no where *NEAR* as impressive as Manning or Brady’s are, and so it feels so much more like a stat-padded dude who is very good in his era, but not historically great.

Rodgers– More to prove, but still an exceptional QB. Longevity (and maybe a better coach) would help him a lot (not that McCarthy is awful, he’s just “good”, and the top-5s need “great”).

Favre*– I hate Favre’s place in the NFL pantheon so much. Okay, he was an iron man. He was also garbage in terms of leading his team back from deficits late in games– worse than Brees– and his gun-slinging style hurt the Packers so much against good teams. So, so much. He’s the pre-eminent stat-padder in NFL history, rivaled only by Joe Namath on my list of most-over-rated QBs ever. He was a liability, and his MVP status was undeserved (except *maybe* once, and even then– I still give it to White). Favre was talented enough to get those stats, so he deserves some mention, but if he had been even a little bit more disciplined in his play, he could have had another 4 rings. Favre should have been punished for his failures (and, as a fan of history, his betrayal of the Packers), by sitting 1 year before getting into the Hall. But I’m petty that way.

To shed some light as a Saints fan – Drew doesn’t get a whole lotta help. His best receiver was probably Marques Colston or Jimmy Graham, neither of which did anything elsewhere and aren’t as good as Gronk, Welker, Moss, Wayne, Beybey, or Harrison.

Since 2002 Brees has played with 30 players having a pro-bowl season. Manning and Brady both have played with over 50.

ESPN recently did a report based on QBR: In the last 5 years brees has the highest average, but the defense has allowed on average the same QBR as Manning’s 2013 season.

As for 4th quarter comebacks – I just did a quick count of games from 06 until now. The defense allowed 20 4th quarter comebacks in that time and I only counted the ones where the saints scored to go up in the last 7 minutes.

Did I mention that the Superdome is built on an Indian burial site and is pretty much cursed. So he’s got that going for him.

I forgot to add – most overrated, which in my mind is unquestionably pre-dogfighting Mike Vick. I am sure many people will disagree, but I think Mike Vick was the ultimate “Sportscenter Player” in that you would get to see the 2 or 3 things he did every game that absolutely nobody else could do. What you didn’t see were the 4 or 5 balls he airmailed over a receivers head because he had zero touch, or the big sacks he took because he was trying to pull off the incredible, he fumbled much too much, he threw too many INTs compared to relatively few TDs, he only twice broke even 3,000 yards passing in a season, he completed only 56% of his passes for his career, and on and on… Was he exciting? Of course. But as a QB, he was overrated.

Regarding Steve Young and why I think he is underappreciated, I feel that way because I don’t think he is listed in the top 5 very much (not sure he IS top 5) and I think there’s people that get listed above him that are not as good. Elway in particular comes to mind. Steve Young led the league in rating 6 times, including his first 4 as the 49ers primary starter, he led the league in NY/A 5 times, completion percentage 5 times, and he was exceptional with his legs without it being a liability. I just think he was better than a lot of people give him credit for.

I’m 36, but I had the fortune of being able to do several history projects in college, including my thesis, that dovetailed with the NFL (mostly city planning around NFL stadia and history of the league as an organization and its impact on American culture), and while it wasn’t strictly necessary for my papers, I did watch a lot of games from the 1950s, 60s, 70s, and early 80s as part of this (the era when most of the stadia I studied had been built, or when teams were leaving for cities that would build them). Starr is probably the hardest QB from that time frame to peg down in terms of greatness.

Steve Young is heralded by most as a top-10 QB, and many put him in the top 5-6 category. If anything, I think he gets more credit than he deserves– he was a blast to watch, and he was excellent without question. The primary issue that he runs into is that nasty Rings thing, and comparisons to Montana. Montana went against *GREAT* teams his entire NFL career, from Gibbs Redskins, Parcell’s (and Belichik’s) Giants, to the Bears. Montana had epic Super Bowls against the Bengals (wow weird is that sentence), and an absolute dismantling of the #1 defense in the League (Denver), in the biggest blowout in NFL history (Denver, sadly, is on the wrong end of 3 of the 4 biggest of those). Yes, Young had to deal with the Cowboys and the Packers, but… I think Montana had the bigger task. Of course, Montana also had the better coach in Walsh. What also pushes Young into a different category is that dreaded Salary Cap, which Montana never had to really face.

I do think that Young was the best over-all performing QB from 1991 through 1998, excepting only (maybe) Elway (and even as a Broncos fan, I think in that particular stretch, Young was better). But the truth is, Young only had 7 years where he started all of his games, and only 8 with the ‘9ers where he played in more than half the games of the season. His career was shortened by backing up Montana. Elway, by contrast, started half-or-more every year of his career for 16 straight years. Montana for 12/15 years. Young only had 3 complete seasons. Yes, in raw talent, he was arguably the best we’ve ever seen (Rodgers could make a claim for that title, as can Elway), but his body of work left some significant holes that, while they don’t preclude him from greatness (he’s 100% top 15 all time, and that’s nothing to be ashamed of at all), do provide sufficient “yeah buts” to remove him from the conversation when compared to QBs who don’t have those same ‘yeah buts’, or who have fewer of them.

Young might well be under-appreciated in an historic context from those who don’t remember him (“1 Ring? Pass” goes much of the conversations), and he is definitely a case where more is made of Super Bowl rings than the player deserves, but… I dunno. I don’t know that I could call him underappreciated. Is he top 5? No. Is he somewhere between 6 and 15? Sure, and that’s where he’s almost always listed. But I’d be amazed if any non-Cowboy-fan would put Steve Young below, say, Aikman. I can see many listing him under Favre, but I think that’s more a case of Favre being over-inflated than Young being underappreciated.

I dunno– where do *you* think Young belongs in the top 15/top 20 list? Who do others frequently put over him, and why does Young deserve to be higher on that list?

While I’m a Saints fan, I currently reside and grew up in Atlanta (my family is from Nola). Mike Vick is one of the most overrated for this era but only because his career never amounted to anything. I do think if you stick him in other eras where his 4.2 speed and arm strength would be cheat codes and no one would stop him (unless Jack Lambert caught him and broke him in half).

I think that both Montana and Young had unfair advantages over the quarterbacks of their era. They had Bill Walsh, the west coast offense, and the greatest receiver of all time. Their owner would pay top dollar for players (before teams were required to) and was the first to spend lavishly on travel for his players (which had a HUGE impact on their road record).

They both played with multiple HoF in their superbowls, and their opponents rarely had more than one. From 1983-1996 the 49ers only finished outside the top 4 in total defense 3 times and only once out of the top 10. That’s insane.

That’s not to knock their accomplishments but meant to provide some more insight into why I also have bias against Brady. He’s not even been in as good of a situation as Young or Montana (thanks to the salary cap), but he’s been in pretty good ones most of his career thanks to his coach and organization.

I’d still rank Montana and Young in my top 10 all time greatest, but go back and look and you’d rarely find better teams to win championships with. Young and Montana could afford to be efficient because their teams could always pick up the slack if they weren’t scoring.

I want the Pats to win the Superbowl if for no other reason than the watch Goddell have to give that trophy to Brady. They need to clear the podium when it happens and have Tom stand on a big box too. Then when he gives it to him, Tom whips out a balloon, blows it up, and lets it go as it deflates flying all around Goddell.

Rodger’s is overrated, are you kidding me? He receives no blame for their dysfunction and throws teammates under the bus. He’s got the demeanor of Jay Cutler, it’s just he has better decision making. One ring that he got on the back of his defense doesn’t make him the best right now, not even close. It was hilarious when Packers fans were crying that Jordy Nelson going down gave the Packers offense an excuse to suck last year. Brady’s taken worse receiving corps and won Super Bowls, divison titles, etc. Rodger is top 5 right now, but no way in hell is he the best qb in football right now.

This comic usually averages about 20-30 comments on a post Dave says something about ole Tommy boy and the comments explode. That makes this my favorite comic of them all. I love angry Pats fans Keep up the good work.

Side note: Manning is better to me because he elavated trash teams farther than brady ever has but I also admit that isnt a great measuring stick because brady has not been in a position to elevate trash because ole Bill is such a great coach.

Hahahaha not quite. Those coaching changes are pretty important factors, man. Brady has had the GOAT coach and Peyton was dealing with much lesser people at the helm.

Brady did indeed elevate some bad offenses in his early career but he was simply good during the dynasty seasons (His stats prior to ’04 aren’t really anything special) and it was Belichick’s defense that won those championships. Brady didn’t start dragging teams into the playoffs until after ’07 when the defense fell off and Brady became a lot better.

Peyton had more quality weapons to work with (especially early on with Harrison and Wayne) but he never had the coaching or the defense to back up his offense, so Peyton and Harrison more or less dragged the Colts into the playoffs every season for a long time and they never got to win until ’06 when the Defense suddenly found itself and they got lucky and played Rex Grossman in the Super Bowl.

Brady dragged more teams to the playoffs after 07 (especially in ’11 when your secondary was shit) but Peyton was dragging teams before then and didn’t really stop dragging teams till the Broncos finally dragged him. If Peyton had had the quality defenses and coaching Brady had, Peyton would own a lot more championships, methinks.

Peyton had a Hall of Fame coach in Dungy. He doesn’t make the Super Bowl in ’06 if Belichick doesn’t overthink that 4th & 2 (my 3rd most painful football memory) and he gets dragged by his defense to another one. So he deserves 0 rings if we’re being honest. Now, that being said, Tuck Rule was only used once in that game, so Oakland would move on, plus if the Seahawks run, that’s minus 2 for Brady, but then again, FUCK YOU ELI. Those were ridiculous miracles. So Brady deserves to be 4 for 5 in Super Bowls. 4>0. Also, Dave, if you could, please give us your all-time qb rankings.

Gee, I guess it’s hard to single out individual players and assess their relative “greatness” when it’s a team fucking sport. Who would have thought of it?

The entire argument is bad because the question is bad. It’s a team sport. You can’t separate the player from their situation, which includes countless variables you can’t even fully identify, much less control for. There is no such thing as the unambiguously greatest quarterback ever, and there never will be.